~ Reliving Childhood One Week at a Time

Pinocchio – Sarah

Just as a rebuttal to Jon’s post: yes, there are girls. Both the Blue Fairy and Cleo count as females. Also, when Geppetto sends Pinocchio off to school, Pinocchio asks, “what are those?” to which Geppetto responds, “Huh? Oh those! they are your schoolmates…girls and boys.” Just because the girls don’t turn into jackasses, doesn’t mean there are no females.

Overall, I love this film. There’s a good moral, nice music, likable characters, beautiful animation, a really cute cat, and amazing wooden carved clocks. Boys smoking, drinking, running amuck, and literally turning into jackasses? Good luck getting away with that in any G rated film these days. Love it. (Jon makes a good point about that not being a cost effective way to raise donkeys, however.)

That is not to say that the film is without its problems.

Why are John Worthington Foulfellow (Honest John) and Gideon the only anthropomorphic animal characters? No one else thinks it is weird that there’s a talking fox and a drunk cat walking around with these humans? Oh okay. (Fun fact – Gideon was originally voiced by Mel Blanc – famous as the voice for many of the Looney Tunes characters) Figaro is also a cat, but a pet. Why can’t he talk? (Same reason why Goofy and Pluto are both dogs, but only Goofy can talk, I guess)

How does Geppetto get swallowed by a whale when looking for Pinocchio? The story is Italian, so I can imagine him wandering towards a beach or something to look, but why would he go into the water, on boat or otherwise? The whale couldn’t have been close to shore. Monstro was HUGE. Furthermore, how can Jiminy Cricket breathe underwater when they go looking for Monstro? Pinocchio is excused because he is made of wood. What is the cricket’s excuse?!

Speaking of Jiminy….he was quite the skirt chaser. I’m just going to leave it at that.

Faults aside, I think I like this movie far more as an adult than I did as a child. Not one of my top films, but definitely enjoyable.